System Voltages and speeds

Whoop · 9 May 2009 at 11:24

Hey all,

I've just put together my new system and made no alterations at all to the bios.

Should i be concerned by the FSB VTT shown below?

The memory is on auto in bios by the way, I bought 1066mhz but I'm pretty sure its running at 800mhz. I took it off auto and set it to 1066/333 and it failed to post.

What did I do wrong?

Whoop
(has no idea at all these days)

Plec · 9 May 2009 at 11:48

You probably need to up your voltages for your memory - usually 2.1v+ at 1066. Your BIOS on auot will set it at 800 and so probably set the voltage at only 1.8v.

I'm guessing you probably only upped the frequncy but not the voltages to match the new settings? Which is why it wouldn't post.

Would be helpful to know your memory make and type so we know what setting, timings and voltage you should be using. Plus the rest of your spec.

Whoop · 9 May 2009 at 14:15

Heya,

True enough

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Socket 775 (3.0GHz) 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache

DFI LANPARTY JR P45-T2RS iP45 Socket 775 8 channel audio mATX Motherboard

OCZ Gold Edition 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 Dual Channel

OcUK Value GeForce GTX 260 "Core 216 55nm" 896MB GDDR3 Dual DVI

Makes up the main system. It seems rock solid at the auto settings so far in Windows 7 but it would be good to get rid of the red text and get it to 1066mhz

Whoop

Plec · 9 May 2009 at 15:16

Your memory requires a voltage of 2.1v to run at 1066Mhz and CL 5-6-6-18 (CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS). I would try this first to see if your system will post.

The VTT helps with oveclocking via the FSB - the default does seem a little low, but its ok. Try upping it to 1.1v for now to see if it helps your system post with the new memory timings. If it's stable at a lower voltage then great.

You can certainly up it from its present setting but if it posts leave it alone - i would go up in increments of 0.05v but not much higher than 1.2v for now - until you're sure what your doing in your BIOS. The NB will have its part to play too - but that's for another day if your system is unstable or you want to do some heavy overclocking.

Edit: And i'm guessing that 'speed step' has kicked in and that is why your cpu voltage is only 1.04v rather than 1.25v? (Check this in your BIOS - if it reads 1.25v it's ok). Speed step drops you cpu multiplier and voltage when the cpu is idle.

Good luck

Whoop · 9 May 2009 at 20:54

Heya,

Thanks for the detailed reply but I did hit a small snag.

The system posts fine but I get memory exception errors in WoW. The only changes I made where to up the Vdimm to 2.1 and set the speeds manually.

Should I be doing something else to get it stable? I don't care about overclocking the cpu I just want the memory stable at its correct speed

Cheers,

Whoop

Probably a better question is how high can I take the Vdimm voltage till its stable or is there something else I should do.

Plec · 10 May 2009 at 02:16

Did you check that the vcore was set at 1.225v in the BIOS? If it isn’t – set it at this voltage as it’s the default for your cpu and test WoW again.

If the vCore was correctly set I would next start upping the vdimm voltage. I would start off at 2.2v and then 2.25v as anything over that negates your OCZ guarantee. However, if you're still getting errors I, personally, would still go to 2.3v.

If it’s still not stable after that, try placing your memory into the different slots.

Once you have done all of the above, and your memory timings have been input correctly, the memory should really run at its designated speed.

Post back with your results and if it’s still not stable we’ll have to look at slightly upping some other voltages within the BIOS, just incase they're running slack, and perhaps testing each stick individually by running memtest just to make sure your memory is ok.